"Just Ignore It" Is Hurting Us: The Mental Health Impact of Racism and Why Silence Is Not The Answer.

(With their permission, I’m sharing a portion of my mentee’s experience, not because it’s unique, but because it’s disturbingly common. No names or specifics will be used to protect privacy).

It’s hard to put into words the depth of pain I felt when my mentee, a brilliant, kind, first-year college student recently told me, “I just realized I’m going to have to have these conversations for the rest of my life and that reality is exhausting.”

They had just finished recounting another painful incident of racism at their university in the Northeast, a place they were excited to attend, hoping it would expand their knowledge, deepen their connections, and prepare them for a promising future. Instead, they were confronted with something far too familiar for people of the global majority: discrimination, isolation, and gaslighting.

This isn’t an isolated incident. It’s not a misunderstanding. It’s not a coincidence. It’s a pattern. It’s systemic. And it is harming our mental health.

When these experiences are shared, whether in classrooms, workplaces, or communities, the response from those with the power to intervene is often the same:

“Don’t make a big deal about it.” 

“Just focus on your studies/work.” 

“It’s not that serious — don’t give it energy.” 

“Move on.”

But what they’re really saying is: “Your pain makes me uncomfortable, and instead of addressing the harm, I need you to silence yourself so I can stay comfortable.”

This silence, both imposed and internalized, has devastating consequences.

Complicity Is The Enemy — Not Conversation

In their first semester of college, my mentee was assigned to a group project and they were the only Black student in the group. From the beginning, their classmates intentionally excluded them, withholding meeting times, dismissing their input, and leaving them out of crucial planning sessions. They would tell my mentee to show up at a certain time, only for my mentee to arrive early and realize the group had been meeting without them. When my mentee brought these experiences to their professor’s attention, instead of addressing the harm caused by their classmates, the professor assigned my mentee additional work and required them to write a paper about their experiences with exclusion. There was no accountability for the students who perpetuated the harm, only a burden placed on the student who experienced it.

And it didn’t stop there.

In another class, a student made an openly discriminatory comment about racial stereotypes. When my mentee spoke up, hoping the professor would intervene, the professor ignored them and instead told my mentee to challenge their classmate themselves. This professor had the perfect opportunity to facilitate a critical conversation about bias and discrimination but they refused to do so and later shared that discussions abut race made them uncomfortable. Instead of navigating the discomfort, my mentee was made to feel like they were the problem for disrupting the status quo. As a result, my mentee was tearful and left the classroom. Their sleep was disrupted for nights and their sense of safety on campus evaporated.

There’s a harmful and intentional narrative that suggests talking about racism is what causes division, rather than the actual racism itself.

It’s convenient, isn’t it?

• Blame the person speaking up, rather than the harm itself.

• Silence the conversation, rather than dismantle the behavior.

• Maintain the status quo, rather than confront the reality.

  
  

But let me be clear:

• Talking about racism isn’t divisive — racism is.

• Addressing discrimination isn’t harmful — allowing it to persist is.

• Demanding justice isn’t unprofessional — subverting it is.

The Mental Health Impact of Racism

The impact of racism on mental health is not theoretical, it’s measurable.

A 2024 study published in JAMA Network Open found that racial discrimination can actually rewire the brain in Black adolescents, increasing their vulnerability to anxiety, depression, and emotional shutdown.

Researchers studied how the brain’s amygdala (responsible for processing emotions and detecting threats), responded when Black adolescents were exposed to interpersonal racial discrimination. The results were alarming:

• In about 20% of participants, their amygdala essentially shut down after experiencing racial discrimination.

• These same participants showed higher signs of anxiety, depression, and feelings of marginalization.

• What’s even more alarming is that they often did not outwardly express their stress, meaning the harm was internalized, unnoticed, and untreated.

  
  

This is not a coincidence. This is the psychological cost of racism.

And when we tell people to “ignore it”, we are essentially asking them to silently bear the weight of trauma, while protecting the comfort of those causing the harm.

Telling Black, Brown, Indigenous, and marginalized people to “just ignore it” when they experience racism is not only harmful, it’s lethal.

We now have clear scientific evidence that experiencing racial discrimination significantly increases the risk of:

• Anxiety and depression

• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

• Cardiovascular disease and hypertension

• Premature aging of brain cells

• Early mortality

  
  

The trauma doesn’t just stay in the mind, it impacts the entire body.

So, What Now?

As I listened to my mentee, trying to hold space for their tears, their exhaustion, and their discouragement, I found myself without the perfect answer. Because the truth is, I’ve lived that same reality and the hardest thing to reconcile is the knowledge that like me and countless others, they will have to navigate this for the rest of their life. While I don't have all the answers, here’s what I did say: “You have every right to protect your mental health.” “You have every right to call out harm when you see it.” “You are not the problem, their bigotry is.”

To the rest of us, especially those with the power to interrupt harm, I need you to understand something:

• Silence protects bigotry.

• Ignoring racism doesn’t make it disappear, it makes it easier to sustain.

• The harm we ask people to endure in silence is what breaks them down, not their resistance to it.

  
  

So the next time you or someone says, “Just ignore it”, I want you to challenge it. The next time someone calls the truth “divisive,” I want you to push back on that harmful and false narrative. And the next time someone suggests that talking about racism is “unprofessional,” I want you to ask them, why is your comfort prioritized over my humanity?

Ignoring racism isn’t the solution — ending it is.

And that, my friends, is non-negotiable.